Copyright By Sherief A. Gaber 2011 The Thesis Committee for Sherief A. Gaber Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: The Production of an Urban Revolution: Tactics, Police and Public Space in Cairo’s Uprising APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE Supervisor: ___________________________________ Sarah Dooling Co-Supervisor: ___________________________________ Julius Getman The Production of an Urban Revolution: Tactics, Police and Public Space in Cairo’s Uprising by Sherief A. Gaber, B.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Community and Regional Planning and Doctor of Jurisprudence The University of Texas at Austin May 2011 “THE PEOPLE DEMAND REMOVAL OF THE REGIME” ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I must first thank my parents, for encouraging me to follow through with my decision to go to Egypt, even as parental panic set in for my safety. My uncles, Waleed, Tarek Hisham and Magdy all were instrumental here, not only in the ways that they expressed such pride in what we were doing in Egypt, but because they tempered my parents’ worry and encouraged me to simply do what needed to be done, confident that I would be safe. Growing up, my whole family bred in me a love for Egypt and its people; that strong connection drew me to Egypt to take part and gave me reasons that I could hardly understand and didn’t even know I had to be there. I would also like to thank Andrea for her support while I was in Egypt, and for keeping up to date the many people who had no idea of my whereabouts, as I was of characteristically erratic with communicating with people. I also would like to thank my professors, Jack Getman and Philip Bobbitt, for allowing me to leave mid-semester at the drop of the hat with no negative consequences. My advisor, Sarah Dooling, was instrumental in helping bring this project together in such short time, and even though she is one of the busiest people I know still had time to give advice, assistance and helpful comments as I wrote. As far as editors go as well, I would not have been able to clean-up and fix my sleep-deprived ramblings without the consultation and gracious hard work of my sister Nadia. My cousin Yassin, who I grew up with and who has always been a brother to me, was also a strong pull and an inspiration even as I went to Egypt, and first being beside him and even having him support me was wonderful. To Louis, Salma, Sarah, Mostafa, Shadi, Youssef, Philip, Jasmina, Matthew, Noov, Mona, Sherif, Lobna, Amr, Haydar, v Wael, Abdelrahman, Khaled and all the others who I spent time with, worked beside and even spoke with as part of writing this work, thank you for the solidarity, the fun, the protection, the help and the food. Finally, to the Egyptians themselves who took to the streets, who took me in and let me march alongside them—despite my Arabic accent and time away—who defended me, fed me, supported me and inspired me beyond words. The topic of this thesis is their victory, and as such I hope that they, along with the others mentioned above, will forgive me for any mistakes here, which are surely my own and not theirs. vi The Production of an Urban Revolution: Tactics, Police and Public Space in Cairo by Sherief A. Gaber (J.D., M.S.C.R.P.) The University of Texas at Austin, 2011 SUPERVISORS: Sarah Dooling and Julius Getman The following thesis presents a narrative of the uprisings that took place in Cairo, Egypt between 25 January, 2011 and 11 February, 2011 as they relate to notions of cities, the state and citizenship in spatial terms. I do so by looking at different series of events that took place during those 18 days of revolution: spatial tactics that protestors used against police, popular committees set up by neighborhoods to defend the streets after the withdrawal of the Egyptian police, the sudden participation of nonpolitical actors and groups, and ultimately the occupation of Cairo's Tahrir Square and the production of public space and new notions of citizenship that occurred within the square during this period. These various narratives are used to argue that sovereignty is ultimately very spatially limited (ontologically, not necessarily territorially), how the "informal" city and modes of urban existence produced not just resistance to the state but were transformed into tools of provocation and insurrection, and how public space—devalorized and heavily policed by the Egyptian state—was produced through the actions of protestors occupying Tahrir Square. vii CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................1 2. A METHODOLOGICAL NOTE ................................................................................. 10 3. CITY/STATES ENTERING THE 21ST CENTURY.......................................... 16 The Perforated State & the Global City................................................................................................17 The Peripheries of the Center ...................................................................................................................20 Tactics of the Informal City........................................................................................................................25 Citizenship in the City, Cities and Sovereigns ....................................................................................28 Spaces of the “State of Exception”............................................................................................................30 Counter-Moves to the State in the City .................................................................................................36 4. A CRASH COURSE IN CONTEMPORARY CAIRO..................................... 41 Informality in an Urban Triptych.............................................................................................................43 Sites of Structural Adjustment in Egypt and Cairo ...........................................................................52 Government and Governmentality in the City Victorious...............................................................55 Sanitization of the Formal City.................................................................................................................58 New Towns, the End of Space in the City ...........................................................................................62 Recap: Citizenship, Opportunities for Mobilization and the Disappearance of Spatial Grounds ............................................................................................................................................................69 5. PROTESTS IN THE CITY............................................................................................. 74 Chocolates, Flowers and Tear Gas .........................................................................................................75 Friday: The Day of Rage.............................................................................................................................85 6. HADA’A AND REVOLUTIONARY “STUFF”: READING THE MANUAL ....................................................................................................................................... 92 6. POPULAR COMMITTEES .........................................................................................103 7. YOUNG MEN AT WORK AND PLAY ..................................................................111 Politicized Hooligans................................................................................................................................ 112 Reconfiguring Informal Activities......................................................................................................... 116 8. AFTER THE ANGER......................................................................................................123 The State Embodied ................................................................................................................................. 124 9. “THE REPUBLIC OF TAHRIR” ..............................................................................129 Performing Public Space.......................................................................................................................... 142 10. CONLCUSION .................................................................................................................152 11. REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................158 viii 1. INTRODUCTION The outcomes of what happened in Egypt beginning the 25th of January, 2011 are incredibly uncertain; the situation still has a fluidity to it that belies both the most optimistic proclamations of a “New Egypt” and the upset felt by many of those activists and ordinary people who went to Tahrir square only to see the Egyptian army take control of and even co-opt processes of transition and transformation within the country. Neither of these stories is entirely true, and processes of change and transformation are occurring at all scales of the country, along with myriad contestations involving political, cultural, religious and economic forces. Egypt is ultimately already a much different place than it was coming into the New Year, and if nothing else there remains a sense of potentiality and possibility amongst even the most cynical